• Sea Pinks @ Roisin Dubh, Galway

    March 15, 2016 - By 

    I sometimes wonder how often, if ever, bands think about how the sound they craft in a studio translates to a live stage. Some groups are simply ‘studio bands’ – they sound better when they can endlessly and obsessively tinker with the sonic possibilities of technology. Others see the live setting as a different set of circumstances altogether, something with the living potential for a more sensory collective experience, something that can become a genuine reason to senselessly roar at your friends in a smoking area. While this is all pretty vague stuff to be beginning with, I promise it…

  • New Pope’s Guide To Galway #2: General Election 2016

    February 24, 2016 - By 

    Ah Galway, city of tribes. Hipsters, students, buskers, shams, bogmen, crusties, drunks, Spanish, gaeilgeoirs, nordies, immigrants, the homeless: Galway has them all! And, for the most part, we all live in ignorant tolerance of one another. But who is to represent such a diverse and bohemian jumble of dole-monkeys? Here is my guide to the upcoming election in the constituency of Galway West. I am, of course, going to leave out Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Labour because they are all shitehawks. Don’t believe a word from any of them. They are liars. Definitely do not vote for them, I’m…

  • Track Record: Eoin Dolan

    February 16, 2016 - By 

    In this installment of Track Record, we head West to visit nostalgia pop enthusiast Eoin Dolan in his apartment in Galway as he selects ranging from Rufus Wainwright to The Beach Boys by way of classic Irish folk music. Photos by Sean McCormack. Rufus Wainwright –  I Want One I first heard of Rufus Wainwright when he performed ‘Vibrate’ on Jools Holland a few years back. It was just him and the piano and it sounded amazing. When I eventually picked up the album I was pleasantly surprised by the lush string arrangements that accompanied each song. It showed how his writing…

  • New Pope’s Guide to Galway

    February 9, 2016 - By 

    Having released one of our favourite Irish records of 2015 in Youth, Galway dream-folk artist David Boland AKA New Pope sings the varied praises of Galway and all it has to offer in 2016. Galway is great. Everybody loves it. You love it, I love it, she loves it, we all love it. Sometimes I feel weighed down by the love of it. I love it so much that it’s crushing my soul. I feel oppressed by the loveliness of it all. I think someday I’ll go mad with the love of it. The sick smothering love, the clawing breathless…

  • St. Vincent w/ Little Green Cars @ The Big Top, Galway

    July 16, 2015 - By 

    Tonight saw the Galway International Arts Festival Big Top host its first event of the season with the sheer spectacle of Texan powerhouse St. Vincent and support from the always-charming Little Green Cars. The tent by the river has already filled suitably by the time Little Green Cars take to the stage and there’s an immediate sense that the audience is more than willing to be drawn further in by the brutally honest and heartfelt tracks from the band’s 2013 debut LP Absolute Zero and a healthy sprinkling of equally emotive new ones, one of which wouldn’t sound out of…